This is a reasonable hypothesis, but I don’t think so. I try imagining a miscarriage in greater detail and still feel indifferent. Also, I don’t feel ambivalent or indifferent about babies. I adore holding them, have recently raised one past the baby stage and am currently working on acquiring a new one. But if this hopeful pregnancy results in a miscarriage, we’ll just try again in the next cycle and while we want a baby, I don’t mind if my neighbors don’t and their birth control fails and they decide to abort. (Though I do wonder and worry if they will always feel comfortable about their decision.)
I ask myself why I feel such a significant difference between a young soldier and a fetus. I feel like I can empathize with a grown boy, whereas I don’t consider that a fetus has feelings. Also, a huge amount of resources and emotional investment have gone into raising someone by the time they’re grown, whereas sometimes the resources gone into a fetus of a few weeks are so negligible as to be unnoticed. (A counter-example would be a couple that have much emotionally invested in their pregnancy, in which case the miscarriage is very sad and I would not in any way trivialize their pain. For me, the sadness depends on how the people around that pregnancy feel about it. I also feel sad when people want a baby and don’t conceive; and of course in that case there is no death of a potential human. My feelings on the issue simply don’t take into account anything about the fetus for its own sake.)
Intriguing, I guess. I would like to see the graph of grief verses child age and see if it has an uncanny resemblance to the values I would assign, but according to the post, I shouldn’t recognize reproduction potential as the source of my grief. (In any case, I’m open-minded but don’t currently buy it.)
My explanation would be that I see the value of a life as being the web of connections between them and other people (including themselves). These connections can wax and wane over a lifetime. When I feel sad about soldiers in combat, my mind tends to linger on the thought of girlfriends that they have, or could have had, as well as the grief for their parents, while the thought of them being married and having children at home missing them seems too sad to linger on for long.
This is a reasonable hypothesis, but I don’t think so. I try imagining a miscarriage in greater detail and still feel indifferent. Also, I don’t feel ambivalent or indifferent about babies. I adore holding them, have recently raised one past the baby stage and am currently working on acquiring a new one. But if this hopeful pregnancy results in a miscarriage, we’ll just try again in the next cycle and while we want a baby, I don’t mind if my neighbors don’t and their birth control fails and they decide to abort. (Though I do wonder and worry if they will always feel comfortable about their decision.)
I ask myself why I feel such a significant difference between a young soldier and a fetus. I feel like I can empathize with a grown boy, whereas I don’t consider that a fetus has feelings. Also, a huge amount of resources and emotional investment have gone into raising someone by the time they’re grown, whereas sometimes the resources gone into a fetus of a few weeks are so negligible as to be unnoticed. (A counter-example would be a couple that have much emotionally invested in their pregnancy, in which case the miscarriage is very sad and I would not in any way trivialize their pain. For me, the sadness depends on how the people around that pregnancy feel about it. I also feel sad when people want a baby and don’t conceive; and of course in that case there is no death of a potential human. My feelings on the issue simply don’t take into account anything about the fetus for its own sake.)
Ok. Does this seem to describe your feelings?
Intriguing, I guess. I would like to see the graph of grief verses child age and see if it has an uncanny resemblance to the values I would assign, but according to the post, I shouldn’t recognize reproduction potential as the source of my grief. (In any case, I’m open-minded but don’t currently buy it.)
My explanation would be that I see the value of a life as being the web of connections between them and other people (including themselves). These connections can wax and wane over a lifetime. When I feel sad about soldiers in combat, my mind tends to linger on the thought of girlfriends that they have, or could have had, as well as the grief for their parents, while the thought of them being married and having children at home missing them seems too sad to linger on for long.